Okay, for this month I’m going to begin with a really cool audio-based tool called Utterz. The whole site has a “cow” theme, thus their slogan “Utterz – Be Herd.” So what is an Utterz you ask? According to their website, they define an Utterz as, “the first way you can instantly blog your experiences, thoughts and ideas, anywhere, using all the capabilities of your mobile phone. Utterz mashes together the voice, video, pictures, and text you call or send in and creates an 'Utter' that can immediately update your existing web pages on sites like Blogger, Facebook, LiveJournal, MySpace and more.”
Utterz website
Pretty cool, huh? But how difficult is it? Not very. You create an account on Utterz and specify the phone number that you will be calling from. This is then linked to your account. The phone number is long distance, but if you have a cell phone calling plan with unlimited free long distance, you won’t pay a dime. You call the number, listen and follow the clear voice prompts and you’re done! If you'd like to hear my Utter, check it out.
But how do you use it? First of all, Utterz will post whatever you call in directly to your blog should you set it up that way. If you blog, but don’t have time to type up your posts, you can always audio blog your posts from any location. However, an Utter can also be marked as private, which will not post it publicly to your blog or to the Utterz network until you choose to do so through their website. Use it to create audio notes for yourself, reminders, or to orally compose a letter that you’ll transcribe later.
Whether public or private, this opens up all kinds of educational applications in my mind. Imagine recording the voices of your students as they read stories they wrote and posting them to your classroom blog. Foreign language teachers could record student conversations for evaluation. Any teacher could post the question on their blog that students have to respond to either in written or oral form. There are so many possibilities!
Gabcast
Gabcast is a similar application to Utterz in that you are able to call in and record your message. Where it differs a bit, is that this site is more geared for podcasting, but you can set up your account to automatically insert either a link or a flash-based audio player into your blog. When you record your message (200mb storage capacity for a free account with a limit of a 60 minute recording) and have published it, a newsfeed is automatically updated to alert any subscribers you have. What's more is that the phone number you call to record your podcast is toll-free unlike Utterz. Unlike Utterz, there are no privacy options with the free account, meaning you can't record a message and mark it "for your ears only", a feature that I do like with Utterz especially if I would like to record a message for myself.
Drop.io
The following is quoted directly from Drop.io's about page because they so eloquently summed up what their site is all about.
"A drop is a ‘discrete’ chunk of space you can use to store and share anything (pictures, video, audio, docs, etc) privately, without accounts, personal registration, or an email addresses. Drops are not ‘searchable’ and not ‘networked’, they just exist floating in space, as points for exchange for individuals or groups.
Create as many as you want in as little as two clicks and set things like a password, whether others can add to the drop, and how long you want it to exist (you can renew later). Drops are a simple platform for sharing which are by default private, but can be flexibly used in a range of ways from sharing family photos and videos to collaborating on work documents.
Each drop has three primary input methods – the web, email, and voice – and a few secondary ones like ‘widgets’. Anything you input into a drop can then be retrieved on the web at the drop location (with ancillary features to help you keep track of updates via email or rss) or downloaded. There is more to come on both the ‘Input’ and ‘Output’ sides, but everything in keeping with our two core principles: simplicity and privacy"
Table of Contents
Utterz
Okay, for this month I’m going to begin with a really cool audio-based tool called Utterz. The whole site has a “cow” theme, thus their slogan “Utterz – Be Herd.” So what is an Utterz you ask? According to their website, they define an Utterz as, “the first way you can instantly blog your experiences, thoughts and ideas, anywhere, using all the capabilities of your mobile phone. Utterz mashes together the voice, video, pictures, and text you call or send in and creates an 'Utter' that can immediately update your existing web pages on sites like Blogger, Facebook, LiveJournal, MySpace and more.”But how do you use it? First of all, Utterz will post whatever you call in directly to your blog should you set it up that way. If you blog, but don’t have time to type up your posts, you can always audio blog your posts from any location. However, an Utter can also be marked as private, which will not post it publicly to your blog or to the Utterz network until you choose to do so through their website. Use it to create audio notes for yourself, reminders, or to orally compose a letter that you’ll transcribe later.
Whether public or private, this opens up all kinds of educational applications in my mind. Imagine recording the voices of your students as they read stories they wrote and posting them to your classroom blog. Foreign language teachers could record student conversations for evaluation. Any teacher could post the question on their blog that students have to respond to either in written or oral form. There are so many possibilities!
Gabcast
Gabcast is a similar application to Utterz in that you are able to call in and record your message. Where it differs a bit, is that this site is more geared for podcasting, but you can set up your account to automatically insert either a link or a flash-based audio player into your blog. When you record your message (200mb storage capacity for a free account with a limit of a 60 minute recording) and have published it, a newsfeed is automatically updated to alert any subscribers you have. What's more is that the phone number you call to record your podcast is toll-free unlike Utterz. Unlike Utterz, there are no privacy options with the free account, meaning you can't record a message and mark it "for your ears only", a feature that I do like with Utterz especially if I would like to record a message for myself.
Drop.io
The following is quoted directly from Drop.io's about page because they so eloquently summed up what their site is all about."A drop is a ‘discrete’ chunk of space you can use to store and share anything (pictures, video, audio, docs, etc) privately, without accounts, personal registration, or an email addresses. Drops are not ‘searchable’ and not ‘networked’, they just exist floating in space, as points for exchange for individuals or groups.
Create as many as you want in as little as two clicks and set things like a password, whether others can add to the drop, and how long you want it to exist (you can renew later). Drops are a simple platform for sharing which are by default private, but can be flexibly used in a range of ways from sharing family photos and videos to collaborating on work documents.
Each drop has three primary input methods – the web, email, and voice – and a few secondary ones like ‘widgets’. Anything you input into a drop can then be retrieved on the web at the drop location (with ancillary features to help you keep track of updates via email or rss) or downloaded. There is more to come on both the ‘Input’ and ‘Output’ sides, but everything in keeping with our two core principles: simplicity and privacy"
Here's my "drop"